“A move to online voting will inherently mean that people who cannot access that system because of knowledge or hardware cannot vote,” says Rade. “There should be paper ballot locations available throughout the city, as in the past. Setting up special locations where people can be helped with their online voting is not a reasonable solution.”

“They’ve held public meetings regarding dog parks, tree bylaws, and bus service but did not take time to consult with the people of Sarnia with respect to online voting. We’ve met with both federal and provincial representatives and they’ve agreed to bring our concerns to their respective levels of government.”

The public meeting is being held on Friday at 2pm at Clearwater Arena. The seniors association will then take feedback from the meeting and present it to city council.

In the meantime, City Clerk Dianne Gould-Brown says they’ve launched a new website to clear up any misconceptions about the new system.

“We had some concerns from people about reliability, and access to an actual computer to do this and whether there were any security issues,” says Gould-Brown. “We’ll be addressing that in 2018 and the clerks in the area will get together to talk about policy and procedure. The nomination period doesn’t open until May 1, 2018 so before that time we’ll be getting out there with information for the public about how this will all be undertaken for the municipal election in October.”

Gould-Brown says internet and telephone voting will also be conducted Lambton Shores, Oil Springs, Petrolia, Pt. Edward, Plympton-Wyoming and Warwick. She says those who don’t have access can go to city hall on election night to cast their electronic ballots.

Josh has been working for Blackburn Sarnia since May 2010 after graduating from Fanshawe College’s Broadcast Journalism program. His passions include sports broadcasting, reporting and interviews. Josh also co-hosts the CHOK sports show and broadcasts Sarnia Legionnaires hockey games.